Top Spotify Lawyer: Attracting Pirates is in Our DNA (torrentfreak.com)

Spotify is not only one of the world's most popular music services, it's also one that's proven particularly popular with both current and former pirates. From a report on TorrentFreak: Today Spotify is indeed huge. The service has an estimated 100 million users, many of them taking advantage of its ad-supported free tier. This is the gateway for many subscribers, including millions of former and even current pirates who augment their sharing with the desirable service. Now, in a new interview with The Journal on Sports and Entertainment Law, General Counsel of Spotify Horacio Gutierrez reveals just how deeply this philosophy runs in the company. It's absolutely fundamental to its being, he explains. "One of the things that inspired the creation of Spotify and is part of the DNA of the company from the day it launched (and remember the service was launched for the first time around 8 years ago) was addressing one of the biggest questions that everyone in the music industry had at the time -- how would one tackle and combat online piracy in music?" Gutierrez says. "Spotify was determined from the very beginning to provide a fully licensed, legal alternative for online music consumption that people would prefer over piracy." [...] Of course, hardcore pirates aren't always easily encouraged to part with their cash, so Spotify needed an equivalent to the no-cost approach of many torrent sites. That is still being achieved today via its ad-supported entry level, Gutierrez says.

Comments

The way they talk about pirates

[future assassin]

you'd think the pirates would have killed the music labels and music artists back in the tape days, yet here we are 2017 and music is going strong...

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

you'd think the pirates would have killed the music labels and music artists back in the tape days, yet here we are 2017 and music is going strong...

So they survived despite the piracy? Let's ramp up the Piracy!

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[mwvdlee]

The cycle is simple.

1. Labels start gouging customers.
2. Customers turn pirates.
3. Third party offers a service that doesn't gouge customers (the stage where Spotify currently is).
4. Pirates turn customers.
5. Labels notice that most people are paying for music.
6. Rince and repeat.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Dutch Gun]

Streaming video services could be doing the same thing if Hollywood pulled its collective head out of their MPAAss.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[AlphaBro]

Agreed. Let's kill this pop culture abomination once and for all.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Let's kill this pop culture abomination once and for all.

I was thinking more along the lines of more pistols, sharper cutlasses, heavy calibre cannon and a more manly ARRRRRGGG! ... but if you want to be boring ...

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Kjella]

1. Labels start gouging customers.
2. Customers turn pirates.
3. Third party offers a service that doesn't gouge customers (the stage where Spotify currently is).
4. Pirates turn customers.
5. Labels notice that most people are paying for music.
6. Rince and repeat.

Pretty much. Those taking the worst beating on Spotify though are the fringe artists, because they offer one price per stream even though the niche might be willing to pay more and if you're not on Spotify you'll miss most the market so it's meet the new boss, same as the old boss. For the life of me I can't understand why artists didn't organize some form of non-profit client where you could plug in subscriptions like repositories on Linux. Some could be free. Some could be paid. You could co-operate on hosting or roll your own. You could cooperate on billing or roll your own. Artists would be free to organize how they want and offer any music package they like. Now it's the Spotify deal, take it or leave it.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[mwvdlee]

If they get paid per stream, then those fringe indies are making a lot more money off me than they used to.
I tend to go out exploring similar artists or searching for new music using Spotify and often end up at brilliant artists with just a few dozen followers.
A flat rate makes it so the artists can compete on the product, not the marketing.

Re: The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to share my holiday story with you. Two years ago, I became violently ill and was diagnosed with heart failure. I was informed that I would require a heart transplant from a compatible donor or I would slowly die. After a long wait on the donor list, I was notified just a few days before Christmas that a donor was found and that it was my time to receive a transplant that would save my life. You can only imagine my joy, that I could live on as a result of this surgery. I met with the doctors to discuss the transplant and was excited to receive a new heart.

However, my joy quickly turned to sorrow as I learned the details of the transplant and the donor. On moral grounds, I could not accept the heart, and I had to decline while thanking the doctors for their time. It is unlikely that I will get another opportunity to receive a transplant, but it was the right decision to make. I am a black man, and I learned that the donor was white. Accepting the transplant would put a white heart, white DNA, and part of a white man inside of me. This would contaminate my blackness and make me partially white, something I could not accept.

My ancestors were forced into slave boats in Africa by white men. Those white men sold them to the highest bidder, another white man. Those white men beat and tortured my ancestors, treating them as less than inferior. Even after the slaves were freed, white men sought to continue the oppression. White people are clearly less than human, otherwise they could not treat other human beings in that manner. As a matter of principle, in preserving my racial purity and humanity, I could not accept a donation from a white man. It would contaminate me with subhuman DNA and make part of me much less than human, something I could not live with. Faced with destroying my racial purity or facing death, I proudly chose to decline the transplant. It is sad knowing that my chance at a heart transplant is gone, but I am grateful to have preserved my racial purity.

Thank you for reading. I trust that all of you will know and understand that I made the right decision.

Re: The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

What a long convoluted way of saying you're racist and narrow minded.

Re: The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

A black racist. Pure bullshit, of course. Organ donor receipients are not informed of the race or religion of the donor.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[geekmux]

The cycle is simple.

1. Labels start gouging customers...

OK, let me just stop you right there. For years now, my preferred method to listen to music and perhaps in some small way support the artist was to buy their music CD. 30 years ago I was paying anywhere from $10 - 15 to obtain the music I wanted. And today, decades later they still charge anywhere from $10 - 15 to obtain the same damn thing, in both physical and electronic (iTunes, et al) format, with the only exception being hipsters who don't even know what a fucking record player is paying 3x for vinyl. Hell, the fact that CD prices have not even increased in 30+ years equates to the cost actually dropping, which is hardly defined as "gouging".

Care to tell me how you validate this cycle even starting? Yes, I admit that we're paying rather obscene prices these days to attend a concert to see our favorite artist perform live (shit, I practically miss the days when we thought Ticketmaster fees were the "rip off"), but that has little to do with the theft of the music.

On top of all this, I tend to laugh at the concept of music piracy these days when artists pretty much put their entire works up on YouTube, which you can "rip" the audio streams using dozens of legal plug-ins today. Not to mention other ad-riddled avenues that are free. Why again is music piracy even a valid legal concern?

All of this bullshit is why I will always favor and respect the artists who give away their music and look for nothing more than a donation, which I will gladly provide. (You can usually find this on Bandcamp.)

TL; DR - Explain how labels are gouging customers when media prices have remained the same for decades, and YouTube exists.

Re: The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

What a long convoluted way of saying you're racist and narrow minded.

No, it was a long way for a white racist to pretend they're black and that "Black Lives Matter" means "ONLY Black Lives Matter"
The problem with this "BLM Too!" or "ALL Lives Matter" is that in the **context of the easy killing of blacks* (esp. males) *by cops*, that you need to say "Black Lives Matter" to the cops to get them to STOP KILLING black citizens.

  Filter error: Lameness filter encountered What the fuck is lame here you shitlords? When the shitload of denier crap gets thorugh the lameness filter, It's not a fucking Lameness filter, you tosspots. And what about the lame crap of the original racist wankstain, huh?

If you hadn't been such cuntheads and known how to write a frigging filter for lameness than wasn't fucking lame, you'd have had a friggging explanation of what the fuck I would be saying, but noooo, your coding is a lake of steaming shit, but it doesn't affect you, does it, so fuck;em, 'cos you're a cunt. So fuck off up your own arseholes you turdmunching faggot cunts.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

you'd think the pirates would have killed the music labels and music artists back in the tape days, yet here we are 2017 and music is going strong...

Going strong? You can't be more wrong.
Major studios shutting down all over with and engineers, producers out of work.

The first couple minutes of videos is a short Coles notes version of what happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

Um...

No.

You can thank the pirates for absolute shit for music coming from the labels. Compare the artists on the record labels now (Bieber, Beyonce) with what we had pre-Napster (Pink Floyd, NIN, etc.) You will notice that all new artists look great, but their music is shit. Nobody would have picked the Rolling Stones for looks had they been looking to get signed by today's standards.

You can also thank the pirates for making music a non-viable means to make an income. In the past, you could make an album, and make enough to get by because people would pay the $10-$20 for a copy. Now with streaming, you barely earn a few pennies. So, you have to gig, and venue owners know this, so you either have to rent their place out (with pretty shitty terms as guaranteeing them a minimum fee, and they always get the proceeds from the bar), or find some way to grease palms.

You can also thank the pirates for making the concept of a band something that doesn't get signed. Now, the record labels build their bands, hire musicians as actors, and script everything. The days of signing that deal with an A&R rep and having your band be a superstar are long gone.

Yes, the pirates got us free music... but at what cost? A new musician has zero hope of ever eking a living now. Might as well be into meat packing or textiles.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost to make music and the physical CD is far less today so the profit per purchase is actually higher. Making music used to require expensive equipment and small teams of people and the act of physically making a CD was more expensive. The expensive equipment cost meant more talented musicians and support people needed to be paid to ensure low chance of failure.

Today a young kid with a cheap laptop can make music that is virtually indistinguishable in quality from the top charts, can public electronically for nothing, and can actually order SMALL SCALE 1000 CD production with full color prints in a clam shell for less than $1 a pop.

Just like the first cell phones cost thousands of dollars doesn't mean a $1,000 phone now is somehow a great deal.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

You say that they're not gouging because they off the same digital product today for the same price that they did 30 years ago.

How would you feel about paying $30 - $60 a month for a 2400 baud connection to a mainframe that happens to have internet access?

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[jitterman]

I was curious as to exactly what "a lot more money" might add up to. It doesn't appear to be much,unless just under five grand USD in five months for a million-plus plays is considered a lot in the country in which you live. If you're a big act with, say, 20 tracks that get this kind of attention, that's great, but unfortunately small bands just aren't going to make a real living off this arrangement. Touring and performing is still where it's at for the relative unknowns.

You're correct in that at least the possible exposure to a wider audience is now there, though, and that is certainly a good thing.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[jitterman]

Yours will likely not be a popular post, but it is entirely valid. CD in 1985 - $15. Equivalent cost in cash in the US today (used an inflation calculator at saving.org) - $36.35. I may (and do) hate DRM, rootkits, mistreatment of artists, and all of the other things we point out about media companies, but the price of albums on CD isn't something we can honestly complain about.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Kjella]

I tend to go out exploring similar artists or searching for new music using Spotify and often end up at brilliant artists with just a few dozen followers. A flat rate makes it so the artists can compete on the product, not the marketing.

Not really, there's an awful lot of power in deciding what songs are in the playlists they promote and what they put in your discover feed. For every one of you there's probably a hundred using it as a quasi-radio streaming mainstream artists over and over again. I did it this Christmas, just tuned into some pre-made playlist and that was what was playing. Which means all the classics got another stream or five, regardless if I like every particular one. I'm not going to be annoyed enough to get up and switch. I'm not going to really miss any particular song. I just got something "good enough" with minimum effort and Spotify is in control of who benefits from all the potential Christmas songs that fit the bill. The A-list artists rarely complain because they get so many "free" streams from people who didn't pick their song in particular, they're just included everywhere. They drown out the exceptions to the point that your odd streaming paid them $0.005 while Justin Bieber got a billion * $0.005.

Spotify does not have as a goal to diversify the music industry. If keeping the big artists big keeps the big labels happy and the business flowing that's what they'll do. They know it's the big name artists that have the power and financial backing to walk out on them. They know everyone else is a bit damned if you do and damned if you don't, they need Spotify more than Spotify needs them. In fact, I think for quite a few of my music loving friends if you're not on Spotify you pretty much don't exist. That's not exactly a good position to bargain from.

Re: The way they talk about pirates

[pixelpusher220]

The reason streaming rates are so bad is because of the labels. Also because of the labels you have to pay the label owned organizations like ASCAP even if it's an indie band who isn't under label contract

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Dutch Gun]

TL; DR - Explain how labels are gouging customers when media prices have remained the same for decades, and YouTube exists.

I'd say the labels gouge their clients far more than the customers.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

TBF "going strong" is subjective. In the 70's recorded music ate a solid 3-4% of disposable income nationally. Today it's like a 10th of 1%. Once upon a time basically every American male with a job had a decent hi-fi setup he was proud of and after his house and his car it was the most expensive thing he owned. And if said male did not have one he aspired to own one.

Today sales of hi-fi kit are down to almost nothing. People are content with their PC/laptop audio and $50 speakers and the $3 in ear headphones they get from Apple/Samsung or at best they go up to a Sonos system or Beats headphones. No one pays for good gear or music.

The industry has shrunk massively. The only part of the industry that hasn't shrunk is live music. Musicians make all their money today from live shows. If you had to live off record sales you would starve.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[geekmux]

You say that they're not gouging because they off the same digital product today for the same price that they did 30 years ago.

How would you feel about paying $30 - $60 a month for a 2400 baud connection to a mainframe that happens to have internet access?

Technology has evolved to make a better product. And we pay $30 - $60 per month for relatively the same product today as a result.

Other than Autotune abuse, technology has done nothing to make a better singer, and this discussion was about the industry protecting against piracy in the face of legal distribution channels providing the same content for free, which tends to invalidate the entire you're-stealing-my-shit argument.

Your analogy does not really apply at all here.

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[geekmux]

TL; DR - Explain how labels are gouging customers when media prices have remained the same for decades, and YouTube exists.

I'd say the labels gouge their clients far more than the customers.

And as a result, their narcissistic clients flaunt their millions on social media, so we can see just how much they suffer?

Oh yeah, I can really fucking tell that artists today are barely making ends meet because of all that gouging...

Re:The way they talk about pirates

[geekmux]

Yours will likely not be a popular post, but it is entirely valid. CD in 1985 - $15. Equivalent cost in cash in the US today (used an inflation calculator at saving.org) - $36.35. I may (and do) hate DRM, rootkits, mistreatment of artists, and all of the other things we point out about media companies, but the price of albums on CD isn't something we can honestly complain about.

Nor should an obscenely wealthy industry complain about piracy somehow "ruining" them or their clients.

Come to think of it, I see the entire action of ramping up a pointless legal army to "combat" music piracy justified as a business expense and therefore a tax write-off. Nothing more.

One huge reason piracy will always beat spotify.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having your own personal copy of a song that you'll be able to play as many times as you want for as long as you want, immune to the whims of third parties who could cut off your access at any time for any reason.

Astroturf much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when did SlashDot become the dumping ground for corporate fanboi advertising cloaked as a story? This just sounds like a Spotify promo, not journalism.

Oh, silly me I forgot the last decade for a moment...

Fuck beta.

Maybe one day they will make money

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope Spotify will make profit one day, it is a good service although I resent the modern world where you rent everything but own nothing. I also hope they will understand that honesty and simplicity is the key, as well as a good sortiment. I'm sensing dangerous levels of bloat in new Spotify versions, and just waiting for something that classifies as malware to be bundled and/or integrated in hope of some revenue.

Re: Maybe one day they will make money

[Anonymous Coward]

Spotify is owned by the labels thus there is no need for Spotify it self to make an profit.

Re:One huge reason piracy will always beat spotify

[Calydor]

While true, I can't help but suspect Spotify (and the like) are the Steam of the music world - simple and easy to the point that they compete with the convenience of piracy.

A small number of tone combinations are pleasant

[wolfheart111]

There is a finite number of tone combinations that our ears consider pleasant. Is it not like bitcoins where as the miner does not actually create the bitcoins... but finds them. You know where im going with this.... :)... The tone combinations are already there, there is no creation of it, therefore there is no piracy... only the liberation of whats naturally human. I may not have explained my point as best as it could be. lol

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[Kiuas]

There is a finite number of tone combinations that our ears consider pleasant.

'There's only a finite number of letter combinations that our eyes find pleasant'

The tone combinations are already there, there is no creation of it, therefore there is no piracy.. only the liberation of whats naturally human

'All the words have been written already at least once so there's no original works of literature anymore'

I may not have explained my point as best as it could be

Your point is not valid because it's not true.

YouTube for this pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

I get all the music I want for free with no ads.

I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

They're speaking in a way in an us vs them manner - trying to disassociate themselves with pirates, when they themselves are even worse than the pirates.

The ad money revenue goes to them and major labels, so if you're an independent artist, having absolutely nothing to do with ANY label, the money you get paid per play is around a thousandth of a cent because somehow major labels get some sort of a share, and Spotify profits from the rest. It's beyond ridiculous.

Ironically, the good stuff - people with actual musicianship are all independent artists. "Well, it's for exposure" is bullshit. At some point they need the financial support to be able to produce records. Spotify themselves ARE the pirates!

Re:I call BS

[Kiuas]

Spotify themselves ARE the pirates!

How? They're doing their best to navigate the landscape of music business. They have to pay the record companies if they want to stay in business, and getting the price per play higher means increasing the price of their service which at this point will drive away customers to other similarly priced services further leading to reduced revenue and thus even less money for the artists,

What they should do is allow people to voluntarily pay more to support the artists. I've been a paying member of spotify for years. I'd gladly pay double the price if it was guaranteed that the added money goes straight to the artists.

I've also bought albums I'd have no idea even existed if I didn't get exposed to them via Spotify, again something that your 'exposure is irrelevant' argument completely ignores. Putting your stuff on Spotify as an indie makes it instantly accessible to about a hundred million people. If none of those people deem your music worth supporting by buying albums/merch or coming to your show, then it's very likely the music is not good to begin with.

Yes, because

[Anonymous Coward]

... companies surely have transcriptases, surely make proteins, and surely have ribonucleic acids inside them somewhere... So yes, it's in Spotify's DNA.

Wouldn't it be more accurate that companies have something in their RNA? Because I'd think it more likely they use reverse transcriptase than the ordinary kind.

2017?

[antdude]

We're still in 2016! Wait, are you from the future? If so, then what is 2017 like? :P

Re: 2017?

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like 2016 was, just with far most celebrity deaths, more lawsuits, even more people moving to streaming to get away from buying content in physical form with even more laws put in place to alienate consumers. Just like 2016 was, really.
Thanks for asking. 2018 wasn't much better.

Re: 2017?

[antdude]

So the future is suckier. :(

Re:2017?

[allo]

It's great until now. We will see, who's going to die.

Re:2017?

[antdude]

Great? How so?

Re:One huge reason piracy will always beat spotify

[AlphaBro]

Maybe if Steam streamed games and could revoke access at any point, but it's a bit different. More akin to iTunes and similar services, I think.

Re:One huge reason piracy will always beat spotify

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who pays to use Spotify and also pirates music as he needs to (sometimes it's not available on spotify, or I want FLACs), the biggest difficulty for me isn't 'having a copy I can do basically whatever I want with', though that's a huge plus.

The biggest benefit is that I don't have to download individual torrents and sort my music. I can just grab the stuff I like and throw it on a playlist, it's that simple. For my phone and mp3 player, I can download playlists and use it without data if I wish, anywhere I want. It's so convenient that it's not even funny. That's what has kept me from pirating music for the past 4 years so much. So in that sense, having that personal copy of a song isn't a big deal. I know that if they try to restrict me, I can go back to piracy any time I want(So it's good that it's there, perhaps it will encourage them not to make the service no longer worthwhile).

Whats spotify?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked in tech/startups/etc for 20+ years and I still barely know anything about Spotify. I've never used it nor do I see the need to start using it.

I have one friend who swears by it. No other friends or family members use it to the best of my knowledge. Otherwise I seriously question their statistics.

Re: Whats spotify?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, they only have 100 million users, what could they possibly know about anything.

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[Anonymous Coward]

You comfortably ignore most of what constitutes a musical composition in order to serve your argument.

Slashvertisement?

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

But why isn't it marked as such?

Linux

[Skapare]

Well, they do have a download for Linux. But it is unsupported. It needs to either be supported or open source so we can self-support (like we do for so much other stuff). So, clearly, I am not in their intended market. So, clearly, they don't expect money from me. So, how can they make a valid legal case that me not paying them means they are losing any money (that I have deprived them of anything). FYI, I do pay for my music that has a cost attached, like at Magnatune.

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

There are open source linux clients for Spotify. You just have to be on a premium subscription to use them.

Hardcore pirates are easy to part from money

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is making them agree to your terms and conditions and the price markup you insist on having. You see, the seller gives an offer,and the buyer makes a counteroffer, and they then agree on a price. EXCEPT with copyrighted goods and services, where, as the customer, you aren't given any leeway and they take rights they have no right or need to, and you cannot choose to go with a competitor, because that is forbidden. So piracy is the customer's way of giving a counteroffer.

When that counteroffer is countered by the seller (e.g. Old Napster) with a new and better offer, the hardcore pirate will part with more money than the average customer via the "normal" channes (see Radiohead's "Give us what you feel appropriate, even if it's nothing,or the purchases of apps by Linux, Apple and MS users, where Linux spend more than Apple, on average, who spend more than MS users). Indeed when Old Napster was shut down, revenues dropped too. And when New Napster came up, because it was now "content creator"-friendly in terms and consumer UNfriendly, revenues did not return.

The premise is proven incorrect by the facts, and the premise that hardcore pirates are easy to part from money IF YOU OFFER A BETTER DEAL has at least some evidence for it, even if not proven.

Re:Hardcore pirates are easy to part from money

[EndlessNameless]

You act like all of the Radiohead buyers and app buyers are hardcore pirates, and treat those donations as being 100% attributable to pirates.

Yet, you offer nothing to prove that this is case. You simply make that assumption and run with it.

Your argument is terrible, and the only reason it sounds vaguely appealing is due to an unstated and highly debatable premise.

He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

I am one of those former music pirates. Once I got the premium version of spotify, I never downloaded another legal mp3 again. For my musical tastes, everything is on spotify. The app itself could use a bit of work, but the selection of music is 2nd to none.

only people that dont truly love music

[Anonymous Coward]

only people that dont truly love music use services like that
to them al music is the same, so they put this thing on, and whatever plays they listen to

i still torrent the records that i want, and the reason is this:

when a track ends, there is no way, and i mean NO WAY that a hip hop track is going to start playing, NO WAY
i dont want to hear all those big booty shaking chicks, i dont want to hear that rapper that looks like he has autism, i just dont, if i wanted to go to the circus, or the zoo, i would go there, thank you very much

Arrrrrrrrr

[Anonymous Coward]

Shiver me timbers! Me DNA has been replaced with spots!

Spotify- better than I ever thought it would be

[markdavis]

I have to admit that Spotify is exactly what we had needed for years prior. Huge music collection, reasonable pricing, free alternative with non-over-the-top advertising, great audio quality, clients for all kinds of devices (phones, tablets, web, amplifiers) and works great with Firefox under Linux with no software required.

I have even noticed when I searched for a few albums that were missing over the last year.... they were eventually added. So they even seem responsive to what people are trying to find.

I will never stop relying on the old model of purchase/rip/local music. I like "owning" my collection and being completely non-dependent on the 'net. I have some older and obscure music that will NEVER show up on streaming. But that doesn't mean Spotify isn't a great augment to what I do/use; especially for music that I wouldn't otherwise buy. And more importantly, it is a great thing that I now recommend to all the non-technicals out there (and they WAY outnumber us). Regular people that just want a way to enjoy music without trying to understand or deal with ripping, proprietary music services like Apple's, or resorting to physical media. I am probably responsible for referring over 100 new Spotify customers a year through word-of mouth, demos, and friend-of-a-friend discovery. Two new customers just yesterday, as the sister of one of my friends complained to me that Apple revoked her ability to access the few dozens songs she bought from them (a story I have heard NUMEROUS times).

Pandora still has Spotify beat for just "radio station" type listening, even though their collection is much smaller. Even so, I have discovered lots of new music through Spotify with their recommendations. And that is something Spotify could improve- they need to allow users to directly rate songs (like Pandora does) so it can learn what we like and offer more recommendations. And the other is a better "radio station" type mode, like Pandora has.

Re:Spotify- better than I ever thought it would be

[Vastad]

Even so, I have discovered lots of new music through Spotify with their recommendations. And that is something Spotify could improve- they need to allow users to directly rate songs (like Pandora does) so it can learn what we like and offer more recommendations. And the other is a better "radio station" type mode, like Pandora has.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Spotify developer, this is just from reading around forums, pissed off at some features not working on Spotify as expected. Here is what I've learnt and it may be inaccurate. Take with salt:

Spotify sort of do the rating mechanic when you click the thumbs up/thumbs down on a song as it is playing (at least on my Android app). "Thumbs up" will add it to a Liked playlist connected to your account.
Now this Liked playlist influences your Discover Weekly playlist. But here is where Spotify becomes retarded. Discover Weekly is not only influenced by your Liked playlist. It's influenced by every song you add to any personal playlist you create but no weight is given to what you actually play(!?). I know right?

My Discover Weekly experience was OK at first, but now it is filled with crap simply because I happen to have a set of "Decades" playlists (the 80s, the 90s, the 00s) just to capture the handful of songs from those eras I liked. So random Top 40 stuff I would never listen to gets shoved down my throat. What really surprises me is that I have playlists dedicated to Dub and Roots Reggae, a well pruned collection of Grunge, Ambient music and Deep House. But none of those ever seem to influence my Discover Weekly experience. Which leads me to believe the so-called "algorithm" for Discover Weekly is there to sell the Top 40 music and doesn't give a toss about your obscure tastes.

What's particularly frustrating is you as the user have no control over this "algorithm" and can't force it to "reset". I ignore it now.

That said, a couple of months ago a new feature was forced upon us (in the UK at least) called Your Daily Mix.
These are supposedly doing the same thing as Discover Weekly but split into 4-6 "genres" and mixing music from your playlists in those genres with new discoveries. Here's to hoping it works as desired.

Whipping the Llama's Ass

[0100010001010011]

Not quite sure why streaming now a fancy a 'new' technology. Shoutcast is still going strong with 67,814 stations (as of right now). Created in 1998. It has almost every type of station you could want to listen to. Works on any device that can play a stream and you can even rip it to disk if you want.

Re:Whipping the Llama's Ass

[Nemyst]

Streaming is superior to internet radio (Shoutcast or otherwise) because you get to pick what you want to listen. If I want one track on repeat, I can just play that. I can create my own playlist without having to own the music and start up a Shoutcast server for it.

Instead of having to pick from the 67,814 stations, you get to select the exact song out of tens of millions that you'd like to listen to right now, and slowly curate your own library to listen to whenever you wish. It's a far more flexible model.

Re:Whipping the Llama's Ass

[0100010001010011]

Maybe it's just me but the people that 'pick' what songs they want to hear spend more time picking songs than listening.

I want a radio station to do that job for me. I don't want to be a DJ while I program. It also allows me to listen to other music that I may not have heard without listening to my own echo chamber of music.

It's free, most stations don't have ads and it works on all devices. My 'stereo' in college was a cheap 386 laptop I found for $10. This is when the iPhone and Android were relatively new and expensive; it worked just fine until I re-donated it.

Re:Whipping the Llama's Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

My 'stereo' in college was a cheap 386 laptop I found for $10.

Your 386 could playback mp3 (streams)? Pretty sure even 486 can't manage that cleanly.

Re:Whipping the Llama's Ass

[Nemyst]

You can do that with streaming too. Have you even used any modern service? You just import your current library (so it knows what you like), then it'll suggest you stuff based on your preferences. You'll get albums, artist repertoires, and "radios" (which tend to just be random tracks from similar artists you may like). And guess what? If you don't like a song, you can skip it. If you like a song, you mark it and it'll help further curate what it's suggesting.

It just feels like you cling onto Shoutcast much like others cling onto IRC. Sure, it works, but it's dated and there are reasons to prefer something more recent. To be unable to understand what makes a new tech appealing versus an old one is the same as being unable to understand why older techs were important or appealing back in the day.

How to stop being taken seriously: a simple guide

[rebelwarlock]

Just say "DNA" when referring to your company, as though it was a living thing. People will see that, assume you're being a pretentious, ignorant twat, and immediately disregard everything else you have to say.

That's still only one cable and modem.

[Anonymous Coward]

So why would a CableModem able to connect at 100Mb/s cost more than an audio modem connecting at 2400 baud would when it was the current mainstream tech?

And back then, only mainframes were connecting (by your account), and there aren't many of those, so the infrastructure was more per entity connecting, sharing out the same long wire among fewer purchasers would increase the price over currently when they can get thousands of people connecting and paying for that connection over the same distance. The price they get per cable is now MUCH higher, since the revenue is multiplied a thousand fold, but the cost is multiplied by much less of a figure.

Supporting Spotify and their greater cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple iTune and Google Play both have the very same depressing philosophy: get the money. But there's a deeper and more ethically whole philosophy with Spotify, which is why I support them over all the other services, and I think it's important that people consider this before they chose what service and provider to give their money to.

Re:Supporting Spotify and their greater cause

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I use Tidal. They give more money to the musicians and I don't care that scumbags like JayZ own it and profit even more. And no I'm not dumb enough to care about the fact that they stream lossless. I only care that they pay out more $$$ to musicians.

Re: Supporting Spotify and their greater cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to elaborate on that superior philosophy? Didn't think do. This is slashdot after all where th stories are content free and so are th comments. :(

Who has to pirate anything anymore?

[JudgeFurious]

Every person I know who spent any time at all ripping, downloading, trading or sharing is sitting on a small mountain of music. Terabytes of high quality MP3 files that contain months of music, most of which I've barely had time to grow tired of. We each serve as one another's off-site backup and we all buy the relative handful of new music because at this point we don't have to go back and re-buy libraries of music we'd purchased time after time as formats changed. We didn't get more conscientious or more law abiding. We got full. Seriously, when I see that some older act is releasing new versions of their catalog that have been magically remastered or whatever I don't look to see if I can afford to buy them. I say "Fuck off, I'm stuffed!" like the fat guy in Monty Python's History of the World (which I also have in BluRay ripped MKV files thank you).

Re:Who has to pirate anything anymore?

[desdinova 216]

I think you meant Meaning of Life.

Spotify SHITS ON ARTISTS

[Anonymous Coward]

slashdot sure is a repeater parrot lately. do not use spotify if you think the artist you like actually gets paid their fair share by spotify

Sure

[dschiptsov]

Pirates were there long enough for genes to emerge, for evolution to select the trait and to spread this gene over the population of American lawyers. Idiots, idiots and stupid memes everywhere.

no-cost?

[Some_Llama]

"Of course, hardcore pirates aren't always easily encouraged to part with their cash, so Spotify needed an equivalent to the no-cost approach of many torrent sites. "
this statement confuses me, if pirates are making money then why would an equivalent be a no-cost?

the answer of course is because pirates don't make money, sharing content isn't about making money but having the content how they want it and usually for free.

Pirates do Kill!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirates also rape, pillage and commit atrocities on the high seas. Why they give a damn about Spotify is beyond comprehension.

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[wolfheart111]

Which language are you referring to? All of them? For instance Chinese has over 50,000 characters, thats only one language. :) Im referring to a relatively small number of tones combonations that all cultures use. Try listening to different cultures music on youtube.... I often think to myself.... damn that sounds familiar.

I do part with my cash

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, hardcore pirates aren't always easily encouraged to part with their cash

I always pay for the internet plan with the highest UPLOAD bandwidth so I can share the most. Of course living in a small city that doesn't mean much, but I'm always above 1Tb upload/month. There is a lot of FOSS in there but hard to get stuff is my second priority.

Posting as AC from Tor because I'm admitting I pay to spread culture for free.

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[Kiuas]

Im referring to a relatively small number of tones combonations that all cultures use

The small amount of them makes not a single difference to your argument being wrong. Even if there were only 2 possible tones in existence, it would be possible to create endless original/unique combinations with these tones.

That is, the amount of new/original songs is not limited because the amount of tones is limited.

What do pirates find attractive?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yarr, lass, ye be lookin' right comely with yer gold earrings..."

Re:A small number of tone combinations are pleasan

[diamondmagic]

The same way a Go game has a "finite number of combinations?"

"More than the number of atoms in the observable universe" sure is an interesting way to define "small"

Lesson for the MPAA

[Anonymous Coward]

I downloaded ALL of my music and made my 120GB available on torrent sites for years until I started using Spotify. Now I only download rare tracks that I can't find on Spotify.

If the movie industry did the same, I would stop downloading movies too.